My Tuesday "Mischief" Familia

Yes yes I know, another sabbatical taken since the last post.  Quite a few months have elapsed since the Tour Of Cambridgeshire during which I have had a knee injury, done the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 mile (in which I managed a sub 5 hour time!) and did my last sportive of the year which was the Orro Magnificat.

But lets press ahead to the current day.  It now seems like my life has come full circle, and yet, not.  I'm trying to make a concerted effort to find that balance in my two main activities which I have always talked about and yet not managed to find.  Cycling and snowboarding.  So to that end I have started going to the Tuesday "Skills development" sessions once more.  The cycling is still present, but I'm taking a bit of a step back with that as I've not quite figured things out a bit with me.

I cannot be bothered to scroll back through all the other blog posts I've ever written to see if I'm about to repeat myself so please do forgive me if I do while I go down memory lane and reminisce quite a bit here.

I had just passed the level 5 snowboarding.  It was a Wednesday afternoon and I'd taken a half day off of work especially.  The instructor was Dave Thompson.  Was meant to be me and one other guy on the lesson but he was late in attending so for a while it was just Dave T and myself.  He did eventually turn up but I was too focused on passing this and becoming, what the snow centre calls "Main Slope Ready" which meant I could then turn up and get a lift pass whenever I wanted.  No longer constrained to having lessons.  Fortunately, I passed, not sure about the other guy though.  So, being a bit of a green horn, or the winter sports equivalent I decided to see about this Level 6 lessons, aka "Skills Development".  I'm not sure if it was fate or not, but I couldn't book onto the Saturday night lesson.  The next available was Tuesday evening from 8pm - 10pm so I thought "why not" and booked on.

Tuesday 2nd August 2016
Turning up for my first ever Tuesday evening at the snowcentre was interesting.  The people turning up just chatting away to one another definitely made me feel like the "new guy" which is fair enough as they didn't know me, and vice versa.  The two main instructors / coaches being Rob Needham and Keith Chapman were the first two names I learned.  I remember Rob telling the rest to head off to the slope while I got the new person chat in which he also showed me how to tie my boot properly.  As you may imagine, I still found the main slope quite intimidating, so when they told everyone to head off to the slope to warm up and this guy (who's name is Matt Orme) saying something like "OK straight line it from the top" definitely made the heart rate increase quite a bit along with me thinking "F**k that sh*t".

Made it out to the slope and then started the warm up drills.  The first one I remember was this down and up drill where you crouch as low to your board as you possibly can while moving across the slope, stand up while you initiate the turn, returning to the crouched position once more.  I asked Keith to demonstrate it for me and remember watching him crouch down and touching his board with his hand which was ALOT lower than I was expecting to have to get.  So I gave it a go.  I felt like Bambi taking his first steps just after he was born.  Lets put it down to never having tried that drill before and still being intimidated by the main slope along with other people just flying down it and me panicking thinking they're going to go into the back of me because I'm going so slowly.

Tried that a few times before realising I was falling behind in the drills that they were having us do.  Eventually came "the train" which I had seen on another evening whilst on the learning slope and wondering "WTF is that?" and now I'm in the middle of it.  Again, crawling down the slope feeling like I'm trying to take part in a formula 1 race in a Fiat Punto 0.9 litre.  But, despite all that, I was well and truly bitten by the snowboarding bug.  The blinkers were on and I knew I could get better, especially with these guys instruction.

Almost one year later...
I managed 49 Tuesday evenings in a row.  My skills had improved, friends were made to the point where we were now socialising outside of the snow centre.

My Tuesday evening was one of the main highlights of my week (next to me spending time with Keegan). That's about 3,500 miles driven to and from the snow centre.  No matter how bad a week I was having, going up for these hours of learning, practise, drills and socialising was a brilliant outlet for me.  I'd gone from 8-10pm for the lesson to leaving work early on Tuesday (with works permission of course) to having a 2 hour lift pass from 6-8pm and then skills development.  I'd met a winter olympian (Jamie Nicholls) and was more nervous asking for his autograph than when I proposed to Keegan's mum,  I'd had a birthday celebration, I'd been used as a feature on the learning slope because I left a nice review on something like trip advisor saying how I wanted to become part of the furniture (be careful what you wish for Dave!).  I found myself saying to others things I'd had Rob and Keith saying to me ("The lifts aren't getting slower, you're getting faster").  Even to the point where I was being sometimes picked on to show drills to other new people that were having their first ever Tuesday night skills development lesson.  I had my own equipment and had been taught how to clean, edge and wax it to the point where I had a bit of a waxing addiction and I'd ask people if I could do their boards for them for free.

Then it all stopped.

I had started something else (cycling) and focused on that.  I'd shed quite a bit of weight too.  Again, the blinkers were well and truly on and it was all about the cycling for well over a year.

Fast forward again...
I'm now attending Tuesday evenings at the snow centre in Hemel.  Yesterday (27th August 2019) was my 2nd in a row and I'm really enjoying being back.  It feels like a series you watched religiously for absolutely ages and you know all the characters.  Then you take a break (say, about a year) then start watching it again and there are some familiar faces but there are also faces which are also new to you, but they've been in the show for a while.

Its like I've been welcomed back into the fold after an extended break.  I'm a little rusty in that I'm still not where I was when I was a regular attendee.  I see how others have really improved and see things they're doing that I'd like to get there and have a try at (once the confidence builds and I get out of my comfort zone).  I know I'll get there again.  Having spoken to Rob last night about it all I know there is more left in the proverbial tank, I just need to have the guts to give new things a go and not stagnate and I know with these Tuesday evenings with the coaches, the snow centre "skills development" group and my friends.. my Tuesday "Mischief" familia, I'll get there